


Coming Home To You

by sevendustycowboys (palimpsests_and_quill_pens)



Category: The Magnificent Seven (TV)
Genre: Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Drama, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/M, Fake Character Death, Happy Ending, Hurt/Comfort, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-25
Updated: 2018-12-25
Packaged: 2019-09-26 21:37:29
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,574
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17149520
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/palimpsests_and_quill_pens/pseuds/sevendustycowboys
Summary: When things go haywire in Purgatory, Inez receives the news that Vin is dead. She denies the truth as long as she can. But it finally sinks in as Four Corners gathers to build a memorial to Vin. He's not coming back.Until she sees a familiar figure on the horizon, limping his way home to her.





	Coming Home To You

**Author's Note:**

  * For [TheNerveToServe](https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheNerveToServe/gifts).



> A Christmas present for @thenervetoservetheturn who is the BEST Vinez buddy ♥

She should have known this day would come.

It was well after midnight when a tapping echoed at her door, a slow, tired sound.

"Inez, it's me," Chris said in a voice rough around the edges. Defeated.

Inez tensed, staring at the door. If she didn't answer it, maybe she could hold off the truth a little while longer. 

But she crossed the room anyway, gravitating toward the door. Drawn by the need to hear from someone’s else mouth what screamed hollow inside her head.

Chris stood there, head bowed, shoulders burdened with the weight of what he didn't want to say. In his hands, held with gentle reverence, was Vin's hat.

Inez swayed on her feet and closed her eyes. "No," she rasped.

"Inez," Chris started. 

She shook her head, putting up a hand to silence him. "No," she repeated, more firmly this time. Refusing to accept what she could never bring herself to believe.

"There was a dust-up in Purgatory," Chris continued. He kept his voice pitched low, as if that would soften the gut-punch of a blow. "We got separated." He glanced down at Vin's hat. "This was all I could find of him after -"

"Stop," Inez hissed through her teeth.

She took a threatening step toward Chris. In her bare feet, nightgown, and sleep-tousled hair, she looked like a wild creature prepared to attack, bite, claw her way out of this horror she'd woken up to.

Chris met Inez's gaze, his eyes shadowed and dark. "I'm sorry, Inez." 

He extended an arm to her, reaching out to pull her close, to enfold her against the crush of grief. 

Inez shoved him in the chest and pointed at him. 

"Don't talk like that," she said. "Don't you  _dare_ give up on him."

"Inez -"

"I'm not listening to this."

She closed the door in his face, leaving that tattered scrap of a hat sitting in Chris's hands.

***

By sunrise, Inez had saddled up, riding out of town on her way to Purgatory. Chris trailed behind, knowing she wouldn't want his company or his conversation after last night.

What did she hope to find down there in that hell hole?

Chris had claimed there was no body.

Against all odds, Inez pictured Vin alive and well, camped out in the desert on his own, laying low while men from Purgatory were after him.

She wouldn’t allow herself to consider any other alternatives.

***

One day.

Three days.

A week.

Inez was still empty-handed. With each passing day, her conviction slipped from her grasp a little further, disappearing with the sun beyond the horizon.

If Vin was alive, why hadn't he come back to her yet? And if Vin was dead...

Inez knew what happened to bodies in the desert. 

After one day, the sun would get to him, burning his skin to a dry crackle. 

After three days, the wild animals, beetles, and flies would have started eating their fill, rendering his body unrecognizable.

After one week, there would be nothing left but a few scattered, bleached bones if she was lucky.

Then two weeks were gone. Inez sat on the edge of her hotel bed, staring at the grains of sand scattered across the floor, pale orange, gold, and brown flecks against the scratched and nicked wood. In the distance, the echo of gunshots and bawdy Spanish songs emanated from the cantina down the street. 

Inez's hand drifted to rest on the bed beside her. She had grown accustomed to the soft heat of Vin's body so close to hers, especially when she least expected it. Now it was just...cold. All the time.

The last delicate hope of her resolve finally broke.

Inez pushed to her feet. Chris was in the room next to hers. Ever since arriving in Purgatory, he had edged closer and closer to her until he was never very far away - well within shouting distance, more often within arm's reach if she allowed it.

When Inez knocked, Chris answered the door gun already in hand.

"Inez," he said, glancing past her out of habit to scan the area for potential threats. "Is everything all right?"

Inez shook her head, her throat tight, words...she didn't want to say it. But it came out anyway. 

"He's really gone, isn't he?" she said.

Chris's gaze darted back to her. He holstered his pistol, hooked an arm around Inez's shoulders and drew her close, his lips brushing an apologetic kiss to her temple.

"Yes," he whispered. "He's gone."

Inez squeezed her eyes shut, buried her face in Chris's shoulder and sobbed.

***

For days, Inez drifted in a fog.

From time to time, Buck and JD's voices cut through the haze, as if they were far away, down a long, black tunnel.

Buck: Look at her. She's walking wounded.

JD: Poor Inez. Did you hear Chris and Ms. Travis were talkin' about a funeral?

Buck: We ain't got a body to bury. Just a hat.

JD: Well, it doesn't seem right that we've got nothin' to remember him by. After all he did for this town.

 _I can hear you,_ Inez wanted to say.

 _Stop talking about me,_ she thought over and over.

But she could never bring herself to speak. She just kept wiping down the bar, cleaning the glasses, making plate after plate of food without pause until they piled up on the counters. 

She didn't dare stop. Movement kept her sane, kept her from locking up and feeling that cold empty expanse where Vin's presence should have been.

Buck: Chris, we gotta do somethin' for Inez. I can't watch her like this anymore.

Chris: Leave her alone, Buck. She'll come around when she's ready.

Buck: You sure about that? She was crazy about Vin. To have him go like that...violent and bloody...

Chris: Buck.

Silence.

Buck: Just feel kinda helpless is all.

Chris: If Inez needs us, she knows we're here. Until then, leave her be.

***

A few days later, Chris approached the bar and settled onto a stool. He made no gesture for a whisky but Inez took every excuse she could to stay busy, to do something. She poured him a shot and set the glass in front of him.

Chris nodded his appreciation but he stared at the glass and didn’t touch it.

Inez couldn’t look at him. Not since he put Vin’s hat in her hands. A poor substitute for the life of the man she loved.

Chris cleared his throat. “Some of us have been talking,” he said.

I know, Inez thought.

Chris paused and twisted the shot glass in circles on the bar. “We’re settin’ up a memorial. In the cemetery on Saturday. For…him.”

Inez stopped. For the first time in days, weeks, she was still. She braced her hands on the bar, bowed her head, and sighed.

“You’re welcome to join us,” Chris said. “But if you’d rather not…that’s okay, too.”

Inez resumed polishing the bar with a vengeance. “I’ll think about it,” she said in a voice raw from disuse.

***

The desert was still and silent as Inez made her way to the cemetery. The sand didn’t rasp beneath her feet. The wind didn’t pull at her hair and clothes. But the sun was relentless, golden heat warming her cold, cold skin.

The entire town of Four Corners had assembled for the memorial. Vin hated the suffocation of crowds, Inez thought, and she stopped just short of joining the ceremony. The empty space of the sky and desert held more of Vin’s presence than the memorial did.

There was no grave. Only a plank of wood with VIN TANNER carved into it.

JD leaned over to Buck. “Shouldn’t we say some words?” he whispered.

Buck shook his head. “He wouldn’t want us to.”

Chris was the first to step forward. He tapped two fingers against the board, his face shielded by the brim of his hat.

When he moved away, Inez caught a glimpse of movement over his shoulder, on the horizon line. A smear of brown against the blue sky. Someone was coming. In bad shape by the looks of it, too. Even at this distance, Inez could tell the figure was limping…

“Madre de Dios,” she breathed.

And she took off running.

Small clouds of dust kicked up from her shoes as she raced over the rise and fall of the desert landscape. Her hair streamed out behind her as her heart pounded against her sternum with relief and joy.

It was Vin. Walking. Breathing. Alive.

Vin spread his arms, hobbling a little faster at the sight of Inez hurtling toward him. She collided with him and they toppled into the dust, a sprawling heap of tangled arms and legs.

Inez peppered his face with kisses.

“Inez,” Vin said, sweeping her tousled hair back from her face to look at her. “Hold on, darlin’.”

Inez’s fingers were everywhere—his face, his shoulders, his chest—assessing every bruise, every scrape, every flinch or twitch Vin made at her touch. She traced the line of his lips and he kissed her fingers, never taking his gaze away from her.

“I knew it,” she said. “I knew you were alive.”

“I couldn’t come back. Not until it was safe. I’m sorry—”

Inez took Vin’s face in her hands and planted a mess of a kiss on his lips, smiling against his mouth.

“You’re here now,” she said. “You’re home.” 

 


End file.
